Stop The Steal! (But First, Answer Me This…)

Besalú, #45 (Sunrise, or sunset? …In a forest of disinformation), La Garrotxa, Catalunya, 2020

“The first man put at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards. The Executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.”

—Benjamin Franklin, Monday, June 4, 1787 (Philadelphia Constitutional Convention)

I’m Mad As Hell!

So, you are completely outraged by the outright fraud committed by the Democrats in the 2020 Election, right?

Yeah!

You are out-of-your skull angry… You are sure that Mike Pence will be coming to our rescue on January 6 to reject Electoral College votes thus swinging the election back to the rightful winner: Trump.

In fact, you are pretty sure that federal troops will soon be deployed to confiscate voting machines and keep the Democrats from perpetuating this scandalous act of treason.

You have a huge colorful garden of STOP THE STEAL signs sprouting wildly in your front yard.

If you strongly identify with the above, and you sincerely believe that Trump actually won the 2020 Election, then:

Answer Me This…

1. How many election fraud lawsuits has Trump won? How many has he lost?
2. Why have we not seen any evidence of extensive fraud demonstrated in a court of law? Fraud this massive should be easy to demonstrate, right?
3. How is it that Republican-appointed–and even Trump-appointed judges all the way to the Supreme Court–are rejecting Trump’s election fraud claims?
4. On December 1, 2020, why did Attorney General William Barr, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, say: “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
5. Why did the New York Post, Donald Trump’s favorite newspaper (and owned by avid Trump supporter Rupert Murdoch) publish the following on their December 28, 2020 cover: “Mr. President… STOP THE INSANITY. You lost the election–here’s how to save your legacy.”
6. Over the weekend of December 18-20, on the Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo shows, why did Fox News air segments debunking many of the election fraud conspiracy theories they had previously been pushing? (For a hint, Google also: “Smartmatic lawsuit”.)
7. If the Democrats fixed the vote for Biden, why didn’t they also fix the vote to gain control of the Senate and to increase their control of the House? (They lost seats in the House, and a Senate Democratic advantage–Georgia runoffs–doesn’t look promising.)
8. If you throw out the pro-Biden results in the swing states, shouldn’t you also throw out the results that had Republican office holders win in those same states?
9. Whatever happened with the Voter Fraud Commission established by President Trump (and run by Republicans) in May of 2017? What did it conclude? Did it uncover massive fraud in any U.S. elections? (Remember? Trump said millions of illegal aliens voted in 2016.)
10. On December 13, 2020, why did the Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal (no liberal rag, this!) declare that Trump ought to accept the results and concede?

So… the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, the New York Post, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal… are they all in on the anti-Trump conspiracy, too?

[NOTE: For an interesting historical contrast in ethics and moral duty, read up on the Bush v. Gore issue during the 2000 Election in which fewer than 600 votes in Florida made all the difference (“hanging chads”, anyone?). Especially read up on what Gore did after that Supreme Court decision, then compare that statesmanlike behavior with the childlike whining coming from the current White House resident.

As of January 4, 2021, it looks like I get to add two more “Answer Me This” questions to make my list into an even dozen:

11. What compelled all living former Secretaries of Defense–10 of them, representing both Republican and Democrat administrations, including two Trump appointees–to put together a letter saying “The time for questioning the [election] results has passed…”? And, even scarier, why did they have to warn against military interference on this election? What does the latter question imply about possible Oval Office strategy conversations?

12. Why did Liz Cheney (not exactly a radical liberal!) circulate a 21-page memo to her Republican colleagues warning them of the danger of continuing to pursue the election issue–AND, rebutting, point-by-point, all the conspiracy theories and misinformation that is floating around in the stinky toilets of cyberspace?

Massive Fraud Versus Normal Anomalies

The tendency seems to be… to point to a very small number of anomalies as evidence of massive elelection fraud. This is a logical fallacy known as proof by example, or sometimes also known as inappropriate generalization.

FACT: Anomolies occur in every election. Voters make mistakes. Poll workers and ballot counters make mistakes. Sometimes even the machines make mistakes.

BUT: Many, if not most of these mistakes are caught and corrected during the normal counting, recounting, auditing, and certifying processes.

What doesn’t happen is massive fraud numbering in the millions of votes. No, machines don’t flip millions of votes. No, millions of dead people are not voting. No, illegal aliens are not voting en masse.

Geez, Louise, will we ever recover from all this batshit craziness?

(“A republic, if you can keep it.” –Anecdotally, another Benjamin Franklin quote.)

Besalú, #41 (A river of conspiracies and disinformation), La Garrotxa, Catalunya, 2020